Only people aged 18 or over have to pay council tax. If there is more than one person aged 18 or over in your home, the person nearest the top of the following list is responsible for paying council tax:

resident freeholder

resident leaseholder

resident tenant

resident licensee

any other resident

the owner, if the property is not occupied.

A resident is someone aged 18 years or over who has their only or main home at your property. If you have two or more residents in your home that meet the same description (such as joint freeholders), they are jointly responsible for paying the bill. This means we require all or any one of them to pay the council tax.

An owner is someone who is the freeholder or someone who has a lease for at least six months, such as a tenancy agreement.

Married couples, those living together in a spousal relationship or civil partners have joint responsibility, even if they do not have an equal interest in the property.

Our budget (gross expenditure) this year is £708.4 million. This includes budget savings of £17.9 million to meet an £11 million reduction in government grant funding and cost pressures (such as the rising costs of providing some of our services).

Overall, our budget has decreased from last year. This is because of reduced spending on all services except adult social care.

This year we need to collect 21 per cent of our budget from council tax. This is £149.9 million.

We have increased our general council tax charge by 1.99 per cent and added a new charge to pay for the rising costs of adult social care.

The table below shows our budget for the year and where our money comes from: